If you are deciding whether or not you should run your massage practice from your home...consider these important issues.

Creating a successful massage business depends on a few key things, but it starts with setting boundaries. If more vibrancy and happiness is what you want when you are practicing massage therapy from home, then listen up because you won't want to miss this.

1. Setting Boundaries:

For your own mental and emotional well being, setting boundaries will save you enormous amounts of stress and pain.

Setting boundaries is one of the things that stops you feeling burn out and even resentful (often a symptom of fatigue) of your clients.

If you have been running your massage business from home nicely for a little while, but find that clients tend to drop in unannounced, or ring you at any time of day or night, then you may not have set your working-home life boundaries properly. If you have found that this is happening, there are a few things you can do to immediately implement into your massage business.

Work & Home Life Are different

Firstly, the way to effectively set boundaries really depends on your ability to see your work life and your home life as very different, regardless of the fact that the two takes place in the one place. It will be impossible for you to set any boundaries at all unless you distinctly have two lives- your working life, and your non-working life.

This can be achieved through physically sectioning off your massage room from the rest of the house. Keeping the door shut to your massage room, keeping your massage oils, gear etc, inside the massage room and having the phone for appointments also within the massage room are first class aspects to successfully setting boundaries.

2. Set your working hours

It's lovely having great relationships with clients, but we don't want them staying to 10pm at night after their massage finished at 8pm, or dropping in to make an appointment on your Sunday afternoon. What a nightmare!

Set your working hours very clearly, (which includes how clients must make appointments), and you'll be in charge of how your time is spent on certain tasks. Having clinic hours clearly displayed is a positive and healthy action that can easily be implemented into your massage business and will quickly turn into more clients and more self confidence.

3. Schedule in time for marketing

Marketing is what makes new clients come to you. And if you want new clients to come to you, then you will need to make time in your appointment book or dairy as to when you prioritise and action your marketing strategies. If that means that for the next two weeks on a Monday at 3pm you must design and create your new flyers then you simply must not accept any appointments during that time. The way you grow the business very much depends on the time you put into it to begin with.

4. Cleaning House

You don't have to do all the household chores just because you work from home.

A trap that (women especially) get into is thinking that just because they are home, they must be the domestic goddess. Working from home doesn't mean you have more time, necessarily, it simply means you are not travelling in the car to work. It's that simple. You'll find you may not have as much time for household chores as you once did when your massage business wasn't as busy.

So factor in that the chores must be done, but you are not the sole responsible person to do them.

5. Pets and Kids

Of course if you have them, you need to be sure they won't be in the way. This includes not only seeing them, but their noises and smells too!

Some clients will love to have them around and others just won't return and may never tell you why.

Have a look at all the areas of your home-massage business that you can do differently.

Go through each aspect and see if you can improve. Make immediately changes, don't waste a minute on self-confidence ruining actions that make you more tired and less focused on your massage business.

Always aim to run your business as well as you can and you will reap the rewards.